


Confessional

by meanderingsoul



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Getting Back Together, Hair, Insecurity, Kissing, Missing Scene, Past Violence, Season/Series 06, face touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24050896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanderingsoul/pseuds/meanderingsoul
Summary: So much of this last year had felt like running and running herself ragged and getting nowhere. Wasn't that some irony.
Relationships: Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie/Yo Yo Rodriguez
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	Confessional

**Author's Note:**

> This is set towards the very end of Collision Course pt II. Mack made a wonderful apology and Elena reacted in a very *her* way, but I wanted to see a little more <3

Even with the door closed, they probably weren’t going to have sex tonight. Elena would _love_ to, would love to reacquaint herself with every shape of him, watch her hands on his beautiful skin, but it wasn’t the right time.

Still, making out wasn’t so bad.

She'd reached for his head and his throat out of habit and he hadn't flinched. She hadn't known she was so worried until he didn't, until his hands were gentle on the side of her throat, on her waist. Their aimless roll against the wall pushed their chests together, let her thighs rub against his. She was off-balance on her toes and didn't care, not with his hand at the small of her back, the quiet _mmm_ she could hear in his chest. She had to fight the smile at the slick shove of her tongue across his, remembering watching it in the bathroom mirror before. The yellowish light and the different pinks of their mouths, her fingers against the shadows along his jaw.

They finally pulled apart breathless. Elena cradled his smiling face in her hands, rubbed fingertips over his beard even though she couldn't feel the texture under them.

She’d really given up hope she’d ever see this again.

Her hair was twisted from his hands and the wall, strands pulled out of her half-braid. She blew one out of her face with a wry grimace. 

Mack leaned down to kiss her softly. "Turn around?"

Elena couldn't stop smiling while careful fingers undid her braid, smoothed her hair back together in his hands. She turned around to see him when his hands settled against her shoulders and went still.

Mack curled his fingers under her jaw, his thumb against her chin and tipped her head up for another long kiss. He’d always done that move. He was the only one who’d ever done that to her. It made her eyes burn so she closed them, leaned against his hand on her face.

Mack kissed her forehead warmly, but then he sighed. “I should...”

Of course he'd try that. Elena huffed. “You know I don’t want you to go. But I won’t beg.” Her arm stayed loose around his waist. If he wanted to leave already she'd let him. As long as he didn't say it was a mistake in the morning.

He looked at her with an expression she couldn't read before he slowly pulled her into a hug and held tight.

“Ok. Ok.”

Elena leaned her cheek against his warm chest and tried not to snag his shirt with her hands.

They finally laid down together, shirts and underwear. They’d done that plenty of times before. It almost felt like it hadn’t been a year, in the dark and the quiet on her bed and in his arms. But she knew they wouldn’t sleep. Not yet.

These rooms were black like ink with the lights out, no chink of light sneaking in around the heavy door, but the glow from her phone charger was enough she could make out his face. She could see him staring at her.

“You left me,” she murmured, lips still tingling hot from his kisses.

“I know I did,” he said gently. It wasn’t really an apology, but at least they’d both finally said it.

“You _left me_ ,” and she finally let the _pain_ of it all out in her voice, the hurt of feeling the life she’d hoped for those two years slip through her fingers. Every horrible thing she’d said and done and survived so he would _live_ and losing him anyway, ah Dios it _hurt_.

She’d spent months running in circles in her head. Whether she should be out in space with the others, even though Daisy didn’t want May left any more alone than she already was, even though it felt like Mack wouldn't even be _Mack_ anymore by the time she got back. Whether she could still be a good agent for Shield when it felt like she and their Director could barely speak. Whether she actually could move on, or was just pretending she could handle the way everything for her future had still fallen apart even though the world had been saved.

So much of this last year had felt like running and running herself ragged and getting nowhere. Wasn't that some irony.

“I _knew_. I knew something was wrong, in your head or in your heart. I knew you were pulling away from me.”

Mack’s arms tightened around her, his hand moving to cradle the back of her head again.

“I just...I thought we’d get through it. I’d thought we’d at least _try_.” Her voice cracked and she stopped. There was a little shifting sound and Mack's thumb stroked her cheek.

“I know losing Fitz like that was…" she finally started, but there was really nothing to say. She hadn't watched him die and she hadn't been the one to tell Jemma. 

Elena had been the one to take a team and a van to go find Daisy lying in a hole in the earth and looking half dead, had been the one to hold her during the exhausted tears in the backseat. Had kissed her sweaty hair with the bruises on her back from when Daisy had flung her into the wall, knowing she'd had to win the fight with what used to be Talbot with ribs bruised red by Elena's new fists.

But that was then. She and Daisy understood each other a little _too_ well sometimes.

He sighed but didn't speak. The tiny light glinted on the metal back of her finger when she traced his scarred eyebrow.

"And I’d killed someone. Not an evil robot, not just as the outcome of a fight. I killed someone. And I had to think, maybe you couldn’t think of me the same anymore."

Elena could feel and not feel his fingers rubbing along the backs of her arms, across where the skin ended and the metal grafted to bone began.

Mack didn’t speak to deny it. She’d always appreciated that about him, the lack of polite little lies. There was a before and after for her and always would be. Elena had several of those now.

She swallowed hard. "And then I had to wonder too if maybe... maybe you weren’t as ok with the arms as I hoped we were gonna be."

He tensed hard enough she felt it. “Yoyo, no…”

Elena jerked away, almost sat up. “How could I know Mack? How could I know any of it? You shut me out!"

After a tense moment he pulled her hands towards his face and she heard the little sounds when he kissed her fingers. Her eyes burned again. 

“We voted," he finally said. "Everything went from bad to worse and Daisy had us vote and if I was going to turn it down it had to be right then and there. And I didn’t. I stood up in front of all of you and I made a promise to do right by this job and everyone who does it. Because we were losing Coulson and I couldn’t drop that burden on Daisy. Or May. You all voted yes but that didn’t mean I’d be enough to... it didn't mean I could lead us into being the kind of Shield we're supposed to be.

Because we hadn't been living up to that. I almost walked away twice before and I thought about it more than a little during that mess last year. I was so angry with... And taking the job meant that wasn't going to be an option again."

"We all voted yes for a reason. Coulson too." She'd never known where all his doubt came from. The caution yes, he wasn't a stupid man, but there was always so much doubt in himself that didn't seem like it should be there, doubts and strange silences. Elena knew a lot of them now, but not everything. Not yet. 

And Elena knew she was not a patient woman. She wanted to know all of it. 

"There was a lot to live up to, and more than a little of it was me needing to live up to myself."

"That part of all this does not surprise me at all Mack, trust me."

“Yeah, well there were other things that I... I never understood Coulson and May. Honestly, I still don’t."

Elena snorted. That might be a random statement, but far as she could tell Coulson and May had always understood Coulson and May best, and she knew Melinda _a lot_ better now than she had a year ago.

Mack's smile was a gleam in the dark. “I'm going somewhere with this! But, there was a lot of love there. Nobody doubts that. And so many times he sent her into situations no one should have survived or she was injured and he just kept... When you got to us on the Zephyr after Giyera forced it down, she was going to bleed to death if we couldn't get out and it didn't even seem to phase him. You'd want to think he didn't even care and I didn’t understand how he could do that, that focus. I didn’t think I could. The pain of losing Fitz like that… that pain again, but with you?"

She knew she was staring now, but he didn't look away.

"And I knew if I made bad calls out of worry for you, you’d resent me. Pulling away... it seemed like the right thing to do. Then at least."

"I took care of myself a long time, with and without my powers," she said, because she had and she would never apologize for it. Hadn't they just had that conversation again?

“I understand that now. Really, I do. And I understand them a little better too. Because when it finally came down to that situation, as worried as I was I trusted your skills and your brains more than I could be scared. I guess I just had to figure it out for myself."

Elena closed her eyes at his fingers on her face.

"I’m sorry it took me so long.”

"Is that really everything?” she choked out, but tears finally spilled over. She'd fought it all back for too long, empty months and terrible weeks.

Mack pulled her against his chest and she thoughtlessly flung an arm up over him and _clung_ , tried to ignore the tears but he kissed one off her cheek.

They were quiet a while, just the whir of the air system, his breathing but she'd already gotten used to the sound again.

“Wherever we go from here... I don’t want to just be the boss in your life. I want to be a part of it. I never stopped wanting that no matter what I tried, not for a minute.”

That felt so good to hear, but she wasn’t going to just admit it to him so soon.

“So, whatever that’s going to look like now, I want to try and make it work. Let me try and make it up to you Elena.”

The comfort of being held like this, the warmth of him and the weight of his beautiful arms around her, it was all starting to sink in. A second chance for them, or maybe more like their third or fourth. It was a gift.

His hand stroked over her hair in the dark, but she could hear his heart beating too fast, waiting for her to speak.

“This isn’t a bad start,” she finally grumbled.

“Oh yeah?” he said, with that warm bit of laughter in his voice.

Elena hadn’t heard him talk to her like that in so long. "Yeah. I’m gonna make you work for this though."

He pressed his lips to hers lingering and sweet, long enough to feel his handsome mouth twitching into a smile.

“Bring it on darlin’.”


End file.
